Utopian Requiem
by SakuraLetters
Summary: History has the unfortunate tendency to repeat itself, oftentimes in the most unusual ways...Sequel to Temporary Home Rated for potential character death and potty mouths.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everyone! This is SakuraLetters bringing you the first chapter of "Utopian Requiem", the sequel to "Temporary Home". This is set ten years after "Temporary Home", so Erika and her friends are 14. **

**Disclaimer: I, SakuraLetters, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa does, and although I am half Japanese, I am not a successful mangaka. I do, however, own the wide array of original characters featured in this story.  
**_

* * *

The room was small and slightly messy: a few toys scattered across the room, a few books here and there that hadn't been re-shelved, bed clumsily remade by small hands. Several crayon drawings were taped to the wall, within reach of a small person. It was a child's room, a room Edward Elric knew surprisingly well. He sat on the bed, waiting for a certain little girl to come running through the door. _

_And she did, wearing a cute plaid jumper and a white blouse, her school uniform. Her golden blonde hair was loosely tied into two pigtails, and a hair clip that matched her skirt held back her bangs on the left side of her face. Her gold eyes—so much like his own—lit up as she saw him._

"_Daddy!" Erika squealed as she launched herself into her father's arms. Edward smiled as he hugged his daughter. _

"_It's great to see you again, Daddy!" God, how could she so largely take after him and still manage to look so much like Winry? Erika began to go on and on about how things had been since their last meeting. She talked about her best friends, Ed Mustang and Chris Armstrong, and about her school. At seven years old, Erika already had a vocabulary that would make a high honor student jealous and had a stunning understanding of alchemy. To say that Edward was proud of his daughter would be an enormous understatement. _

_Erika was showing him her last drawings. She had quite the artistic talent, and despite being only seven her portrayals of flowers already had a realistic touch to them. After a bit, Erika's chatter died down, and a sad look crossed her face. _

"_It's all a dream, isn't Daddy? Soon I'm going to wake up, and you still won't be here, right?"_

_Edward smiled sadly. "Yes, I'm afraid it is."_

"_Mommy misses you. We need you back, Daddy!" Erika fought to hold back the tears; Daddy didn't like it when she cried and neither did she. It made her eyes all red and puffy and made her nosy stuffy. _

"_I'm trying, Erika. It won't be today, and it probably won't be tomorrow, but some day I'll be able to come back," Edward said as he rubbed her back. _

_Erika sniffed. "Promise?"_

"_I promise."_

_

* * *

THWACK!_

The sound of flesh hitting flesh filled the courtyard as a pair of school kids sparred before class started. Their match had already attracted a sizable audience, and the crowd showed no signs of shrinking. After all, sparring matches between Edward Mustang and Erika Rockbell-Elric were almost as epic as when they threw alchemy into the mix. (Unfortunately, they could no longer do that thanks to several complaints involving property damage.)

A bell rang throughout the crisp early morning air, signaling the start of the school day. Chatter exploded as all of the students made their way to their first class. Edward and Erika called it quits and moved over to where their school bags sat, guarded by a muscular boy with messy blond hair and bright green eyes.

"So, tell us Chris: who won today?" Erika asked cheerily as she grabbed her uniform blazer and her side bag.

"_I_ totally won, Erika," Edward said, a teasing smirk on his face. Erika had no problem punching him in the shoulder in response.

"You're a violent witch, Erika," Edward remarked, forcing himself not to give her the satisfaction of rubbing the area of impact (which was really starting to smart).

"Alchemist, Ed," she corrected in a light, airy tone. "I'm an alchemist, not a witch. So, Chris, who do you think won?"

"You two tied. As far as hand-to-hand goes, you guys are pretty evenly matched," Chris answered as the three friends headed inside. After thinking for a moment, Chris grinned. "Hey, Ed, I just thought of something. If you and Erika are evenly matched when she's wearing a skirt, she could most likely own you easily when she's in pants."

The next thing she knew, Erika was watching Edward chase Chris down, screaming accusations and carefully chosen profanities at him. Of course, Chris was getting a rather big laugh out of the whole deal. Chuckling herself, Erika turned down a different hallway. When she reached her locker, she quickly opened it and began to pick out what she needed and put away things she didn't.

"Good morning, Erika!"

Erika looked around her locker door to see a girl with shoulder-length blond hair and wide brown eyes.

"Morning, Ally."

Allison Havoc was a bubbly girl with an ungodly amount of energy. She could probably sprint to Xing and back without getting tired. While she had no interest in fighting or alchemy, she did share Erika's passion for art. While Allison was actually two years younger (she had managed to skip two grades back in elementary school), that didn't stop the girls from quickly becoming friends.

"How far are you on that project Mrs. Iverson assigned?"

"I just finished the eyes."

"Only the eyes?" Allison was shocked; usually Erika steamrolled through her projects and made them look absolutely stunning within two days of getting the assignment. They had been on this assignment for three days.

"I told you I'm not good at drawing people, or animals. I much prefer still life."

Allison, who was the opposite when it came to her preference of subject, mulled over her choices. If she continued with the issue at hand, it wouldn't be long before Erika got stuck in one of her hostile moods (which, when she thought about it, was inevitable: the idiots in their Algebra class never failed to set her into a homicidal rage). However, if she changed the subject, chances were very good that the conversation would wander to Erika's relationship with Edward. Ah well; a flustered Erika was extremely amusing.

They had their first three classes together: back to back art classes and then Algebra. Allison had the strangest feeling that something would go horribly, horribly wrong today, and she warily scanned the classroom. Unfortunately, the three biggest provokers of Erika's wrath were present. Craig Olsen, Katie Mathews, and Timmy Schultz had been thorns in Erika's side since she given them all minor injuries standing up for Allison back in the second grade. They had never quite gotten over the humiliation and had vowed to make Erika's life a living hell because of it. Today, they seemed to be at the top of their game.

"Hey, Erika, still no word from daddy?"

"Shove off, Katie," Erika snapped as she set her bag down (mercifully, the teacher had managed to keep a room's length between them) and pulled out her math notebook.

"Hey, have you heard the news? They're finally holding war crime trials for what happened in Ishbal," Craig said offhandedly, a smirk on his face. "Looks like your little boyfriend is going to be short two parents in a few months."

Allison knew bloodshed was imminent when Erika froze. Rule number one when dealing with Erika: you could badmouth her all you wanted, but bring her family and friends into it more than once, and you were a dead man. Craig obviously didn't grasp the severity of the situation, seeing as he was sharing a rather obnoxious laugh with his friends. Erika, however, was already plotting the many gruesome ways she could kill him.

"Olsen, for seven years, I've put up with your shit, but now you've gone too far." Erika's voice was eerily calm, rage seething underneath the surface like lava preparing to erupt from a volcano. Within seconds, Erika had him pinned to the wall, her eyes flashing murder. "Don't ever joke about matters you do not understand. Ishbal happened over twenty years ago. If this country is too stupid to just move forward, that's its problem, but I will not let you badmouth my best friend's parents!"

Fear shone in Craig's eyes. Thankfully, she was only holding him by his collar instead of his throat (he was almost certain he'd have suffocated by now if she was), but the pure malice in her eyes made him shake with an unholy fear. Erika let go of him. She remained silent as she returned to her seat. The entire class remained silent as the teacher walked in and began the lesson, Erika's outburst fresh in their minds.

Meanwhile, Craig, Katie, and Timmy were all stunned. That was Erika's first outburst of physical violence towards them since their original beating seven years ago. The only thing Craig could think of was Erika's eyes darkening into soulless gold orbs, promises of a horrible and bloody murder floating just underneath the surface. Those eyes would haunt his nightmares for life. One thing was certain:

Erika was true demon when she was pissed.

* * *

The final bell rang, and students poured into the hallways as they headed for their lockers and then home. Everyone was chatting happily, not a single depressing thought on their minds. With Erika and Edward, it was a completely different story. Erika's face brightened when she spotted Chris and Ed. Chris noticed her immediately, but Edward's eyes remained on the ground until Chris lightly elbowed him the side.

"Huh? Oh, sorry Erika. Didn't see you there." His voice sounded so…_defeated_. It just wasn't like him to be so depressed.

"You won't see anyone looking at the ground like that, Ed. You still want to come with us to that new bookstore?"

"Hehe, sorry guys," Edward said, rubbing the back of his head. "I can't hang out with you guys after school anymore."

"What? Why?"

"The guards assigned to my parents have orders to keep tabs on all of us until the trial's over. It's either this or drag you two into it by having them shadow me. I didn't think you'd be too happy with the shadow thing."

"I'm not happy with either of them!" Erika was irritated; how dare a couple of military upstarts tell her best friend how he could and couldn't spend his time! "Ed, they can't do this! You're not on trial!"

"They gave Blaire and Nikki the same ultimatum."

"Blaire's only nine! And Nikki just turned seven!"

Edward didn't say anything; he didn't even smile at the memory of Blaire tearing the officers a new one. She had a very healthy set of lungs on her; they probably heard her clear on the far side of Xing.

"Ed, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'd better get going. Have fun at the bookstore!" With that, Edward took off to home, leaving his friends in the dust.

"We might as well get to the bookstore, Erika," Chris said, adjusting his back pack. Erika nodded and the two left the school.

"Chris?"

"Yeah, Erika?"

"Not to seem rude, but why isn't your dad being put on trial?"

Chris shrugged. "Maybe it's because he was court marshaled for disobeying orders in Ishbal, and that counts as a 'get-out-jail-free' card or something."

"Kind of makes you wonder why, doesn't it?"

"I heard you flipped on Olsen today."

"He just said the wrong thing at the wrong time. He should know by now that my tolerance threshold when it comes to him is near zero. Besides, he said something about Ed's situation that I didn't find particularly amusing."

Chris decided not to push the subject further; if Erika believed she was justified, there was very little anyone could say to convince her otherwise. She had an amazing amount of self-restraint and hadn't physically assaulted someone in anything other than self defense since the second grade. (Although, that might have counted as self-defense because Craig Olsen did throw the first punch.)

"It's going to snow soon," Erika said offhandedly, absentmindedly looking at her shoes.

Chris looked up at the gloomy gray sky and suppressed a shiver. Not from the cold, mind you, but from the second meaning of her words. Something big was going to happen, and very soon.

Erika's instincts were never wrong.

* * *

**Alright, I think that went well. However, just to warn you, things are going to fall apart rather quickly in this story. As the summary says, history has an unfortunate tendency to repeat itself, and sometimes in the most unusual ways. **

**Please review! Flames will be laughed at and then promptly ignored, but constructive criticisms are welcomed.  
**

**-SakuraLetters**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello again, and welcome to the second chapter of "Utopian Requiem". My goal with this story is to update it once a month (at least). I'm really busy earning money to go to Germany, and working on the spring play. Also, my favorite barn cat just got squished to death by one of the cows, so I'm in mourning. I apologize if this chapter isn't very good. **

**Disclaimer: I, SakuraLetters, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa does, and although I am half Japanese, I am not a successful mangaka. I do, however, own the wide array of original characters featured in this story.**

* * *

A bookstore was a haven for the trio, and always had been ever since they had stumbled into one as silly, giggly children. Erika loved sitting in the aisles, her nose stuck in a book, surrounded by shelves upon shelves filled to the brim with books. Reading had been her anchor, a safe haven she could flee to whenever she needed a break from the real world.

Whenever a new bookstore opened up, Erika was one of the first to check it out. Before, it had been amusing watching Erika's face light up like a kid at Christmas, but now Chris knew exactly what his friend saw in book stores. He saw it now because he was in desperate need of an escape as well. The look on Ed's face made Chris's heart clench. If there was anyone on earth who needed a way to escape his worries, it was Ed. Though, somehow, Chris just couldn't believe books would help him forget the state of the world.

"Chris?"

The muscular teen looked over to see Erika standing a foot or two away from him. Her voice had brought him back to reality; the store was close to empty, despite having been crowded mere minutes ago.

"You've been staring at that book for hours. The only reason none of the staff nagged you about it was because Elysia told them not to."

"Elysia?" _Elysia Hughes? Didn't she graduate from the academy last spring?_

"Don't you know? She works here. It helps her pay for college."

"Hey, Erika? Is everything alright?"

Elysia Hughes had grown into a stunning young woman. She kept her dirty blond hair short, keeping itself length to just past her shoulders, and had a pair of glasses perched on her nose. She had developed generous curves in all the right places. For a moment, Chris had a hard time believing that the young woman in front of them was every the gawky little thirteen-year-old who had once been their playmate.

"Maybe once before, but I doubt anything will be completely alright from now on," Erika said, a bitter sorrow in her voice.

"I know," Elysia said, "I saw the paper this morning. You're acting like Uncle Roy and Aunt Riza have already been sentenced."

"Uncle Roy won't escape the death penalty, Elysia. You know that as well as we do. His role in Ishbal was too big to simply be ignored. As for Aunt Riza, who honestly knows?"

Elysia was silent for a moment. "Do you really think that the courts will be so cruel as to rob three minors of both parents in one fell swoop?"

Erika shrugged. "Who knows? Amestris has already proven it's too stupid to move on."

Silence hung in the air, a multitude of things left unsaid. Chris, the nephew of the current Furher, was just as helpless as his friends and Elysia, if things had played out differently, could have very easily ended up in the same boat as Ed. Erika was the only one who wasn't a risk of losing a parent, but she had been short one to begin with. The fact that soon he'd been the only one left with both of his parents didn't miss Chris at all.

"Anyways, we'd better get going. We do have school tomorrow," Erika remarked, breaking the silence. "See you later, Elysia."

"Remember, if either of you need someone to talk to, I'm here! Tell Ed that, too!"

"Will do! Bye!" The two waved goodbye to their surrogate older sister.

"See you tomorrow, then," Chris said, an awkward twinge to it.

"Bye."

She almost envied Chris; come to think of it, she had always felt a twinge of envy whenever she had gone over to his house, or Ed's, to play. Why was it that they both got to have their dads and she didn't? It was the same with Allison, although Erika had only ever met Mr. Havoc at certain school functions. They always seemed to have a story to tell involving her dad, particularly Mr. Havoc and Uncle Roy. They would tell her about her father's journeys (although she was fairly certain they were heavily edited second-hand accounts) and little incidents around the old Eastern Headquarters. Perhaps her favorite stories were the ones that involved one the explosions of temper her father was famous for.

Back then, she had believed he would come back any day. Every morning she would wake up and think to herself that it was the day her father would walk through the front door and they could be a normal family. She had stopped that silly belief when she was eight. Her father would never come back—could never come back. She had seen it on the faces of Uncle Roy and Aunt Riza, of Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Havoc, of those who once served (and were "in the know", she'd wager) with her father. She had come to accept that. It could no longer be questioned.

* * *

Chris had always known that Erika was at least a tiny bit jealous of him and Ed. It wasn't that it was obvious, but he had gotten to know her well enough to see the faint longing in her eyes whenever his dad would walk into the room and carry on with life as normal. It was a slightly watered-down version of the look that haunted Elysia.

"Mom? Dad? I'm home," Chris said as he entered the house.

"Oh, welcome home, Chris," Sabriel Armstrong said absentmindedly to her eldest son. She sat on the couch, elbows on her knees, her chin resting lighting on her laced fingers. Her eyes were eerily unfocused, as if she were looking into another world. Something was off.

"Mom? What's wrong?"

Sabriel let out a small sigh and stood up. "Nothing really, sweetie. Not with me personally, anyway."

"Is this about the war crime trials? Dad hasn't been served, has he?""

Sabriel laughed. "No, sweetheart. He was court marshaled for disobedience in Ishbal, there's no way he'll be brought to trial."

"Then why do you seem so sad?"

"Chris, sweetie, sit down. You know how your father hasn't been…feeling very well lately?"

A cold fear spread through Chris's body like ice. Oh, God, what was wrong with his dad? It was obviously bad, or else his mother wouldn't look so sad, so close to breaking. What had happened?

"Well, he collapsed today in the shop. The doctors don't think it's anything extremely serious, but they're keeping him overnight for observation. It gave me quite a fright, but they say he'll be just fine."

"Why'd he—"

"The doctors said it was a heart attack." Chris almost scoffed at the idea. His dad prided himself on his body and took excellent care of it. There was simply no way that Alex Louis Armstrong could've had a heart attack. "I'm just grateful he'll be alright, but I'm going to spend the night with him in the hospital. I just came home to grab a few things."

"When will you be home?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, if everything checks out good with your father. Good night, sweetheart. I love you." Sabriel kissed Chris's head as she moved to the door.

The sky rumbled as a last-minute thunderstorm decided to make itself known.

* * *

**Yay! We get to see Elysia! I really see her as kind of a surrogate older sister to Erika, Chris, and Ed. She's going to be pretty important, especially with all of the crap that's going on. Man, I am just not nice to them, am I? ...Random thought: has anyone noticed that there are a lot of anime characters with father issues? **

**Chapter dedicated to Buttons, the cutest little barn kitty my farm has ever seen! May you rest in peace.**

**-SakuraLetters  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**-jumps out from behind a curtain- Assume the position! -drops into an old Japanese-style bow- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! -is hit by tomatoes. Forgive me, Honorable Reader-san. I meant to have this up much, much sooner, but life has been hell lately. **

**Disclaimer: I, SakuraLetters, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa does, and although I am half Japanese, I am not a successful mangaka. I do, however, own the wide array of original characters featured in this story.**

* * *

"_And in national news today, preparations for the Ishbal war crime trials are underway, and over fifty military command and State Alchemists, both current and former, who served in Ishbal have been ordered to appear in court. Among them are Roy Mustang, the former Flame Alchemist and leader of the coup against Fürher Bradley almost fifteen years ago, Riza Hawkeye Mustang, Roy Mustang's wife…"_

A man turned off the radio and looked at his wife. The dark skinned woman had pitch black hair pulled into a loose bun and bright red eyes that marked her as an Ishbalan. She sat calmly on the couch, legs curled up under her, casually reading a book.

"What do you think of the situation, love?" The man asked, not even looking up from the stack of essays he had to grade.

"You know perfectly well what I think, dearest. What's even more appalling is how everyone I meet seems to think I automatically approve simply because I am Ishbalan. Simply put, it's rather insulting."

"Nothing quite like good, old-fashioned racism with good intentions."

"You know what they say about good intentions: the road to Hell is paved with them."

Malik Amari smiled to himself at his wife's rebuttal. Ishtar was a determined and witty woman; her intelligence and blunt sincerity were two major reasons he fell in love with her in the first place. However, her complete acidity to the war crime trials was rather shocking.

While Malik had very little to say on the war one way or the other, having lived further west his entire life, Ishtar had survived the Ishbal massacre. She was a young child when the war began and lost her entire family to the Amestrian army. The only reason she survived to adult was because she had taken refuge in a temple far from the slaughter. Other than that, Malik knew very little about her life before their meeting some fifteen years ago.

Ishtar closed her book and got up from the couch. "I'm going to take a shower and go to bed. Don't stay up so late grading papers, Malik; you have an eight AM lecture on religious symbology tomorrow."

"Yes, love. Good night."

Ishtar exited the room, a small smile on her face. She knew he would be up late again; the idiot couldn't resist reading every last word of the essays he received. Though, that idiocy was one of the reasons she loved him. Still, it was rather fun having conversations and debates with him on current issues and whatever burning question came up. Like tonight with the trials.

She let out a heavy sigh and stretched. Ishtar hadn't told her husband about the little trip to a certain house in Central she had planned for tomorrow. He'd find out tomorrow whether she wanted him to or not anyway.

* * *

Almost fifteen years of not-quite-floating in not-quite-darkness with only an arrogant bastard named Truth for company is not the most healthful thing for one's sanity, as Edward Elric would be more than happy to relate. Then again, he doubted he even had that precious gem know as "sanity" to begin with.

How he managed to finally get out of the gate was beyond him; maybe Truth just (finally) got tired of him and threw him out. However, that didn't sound like Truth, and Ed's splitting headache was pretty happy to just leave that topic alone for the moment. He knew there was some reason he had come back, but do you honestly think he could remember?

Unbeknownst to Edward, up on the bank a little girl was peering over the steep drop. She blinked several times as her mind tried to work out what to do. Should she go down and see if she could help him, or should she get up and run back to her parents? Circumstance decided for her as the part of the bank she was crouching on gave way and sent her tumbling down the slope until she rolled to a stop right by Edward.

Deciding to go with it, the little girl poked him and jumped back a little as he groaned and moved. "Ah! You're alive," she half gasped to herself as she watched him pick himself up off the ground.

"Where am I? Who are you?"

"You're by a river and I'm Nozomi."

"Nozomi!" a decidedly female voice called from a distance. The little girl—Nozomi?—perked up and called back, "I fells down the bank, Mommy! I'm by the river!"

Soon a woman appeared at the edge of the bank and sighed in relief when she saw her daughter safe and sound. She looked over her shoulder and shouted, "Kenta, I found her! She's by the river!" The woman then carefully climbed down and rushed over to Nozomi. After making sure her daughter was uninjured, the woman looked at Edward.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Edward Elric. Am I near Risembool?"

The woman blinked and then let out a laugh. "No, I'm afraid not. You are in Chiharumachi."

"Chiharumachi?"

"A small village here in the Xing countryside, about half a day's walk from the desert. Can you stand?"

The woman helped him to his feet as a man, her husband, Edward assumed, arrived at the bank.

"Aya, who is he?"

"He says his name is Edward Elric. Help me get him to the house?"

The man helped his wife hoist Ed up the sandy bank. When both of Ed's feet were on solid ground, the man began to help the alchemist away from the river. Aya looked over at her daughter and opened her arms. Nozomi jumped into her mother's waiting arms and the two females climbed up the bank and followed the men.

* * *

Desperate times call for desperate measures, Erika told herself as she tried to calm her frantically beating heart. The room was dark, void of even the gentle moonbeams it would normally receive. Tonight there was no moon, making it the perfect night to execute her plan. She sat on her bed, fully dressed, with her knees pulled up to her chest.

Suddenly, two figures appeared before her window. Erika gave the slightest of nods, which the figures were able to see as they opened the window and crept inside. Shrouded in black, the figures meshed almost perfectly to the darkness of her room. Erika got up from the bed, careful to not make any noise, and made her way to the open window.

Looking out the window, she saw the faint outlines of two more figures, holding out their hands to her. Taking one last look at the home she was leaving behind, Erika took a deep breath and gave another nod. As soon as she cleared the window and was resting comfortably on the roof, a ruckus rose from her room. Erika winced at the loud noises ripping apart the otherwise still night air. Her two companions urged her forward when the noise stopped and the other two figures emerged from the room.

_I hope you can forgive me someday, Mom,_ Erika thought sadly as she followed her "captors" into the night.

* * *

**...I can't even begin to tell you how much the length of this chapter embarrasses me. -gets hit by tomatoes- I apologize for the length of this chapter, but to continue on past this would have compromised the feeling I wanted to create. Besides, Ed's back! By the way, there are several things that you might think are plot holes, but trust me, they will be thoroughly and logically explained in due course. **

**I hope you can forgive this humble writer her stupidity; perhaps one day I can actually stick to a deadline more than once. T.T Please review.**

**-SakuraLetters  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello again! Sorry this took so long to get up; I haven't been at home much lately. Also, as an added bonus, this chapter went nowhere NEAR what I had had planned. I wanted to do a scene between Ishtar and the Mustang family, but this chapter decided to start right at the trial. THIS CHAPTER INVOLVES TIME SKIPS! I REPEAT, THIS CHAPTER INVOLVES TIME SKIPS. Oh, and there's a..._surprise_ of sorts at the end of this chapter. Fair warning. **

**Disclaimer: I, SakuraLetters, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa does, and although I am half Japanese, I am not a successful mangaka. I do, however, own the wide array of original characters featured in this story.**

* * *

~One Month Later~

"State your name."

"Ishtar Amari."

"Ms. Amari, how old were you during the Ishbal Civil War?"

"I was four when the fighting broke out, and I was almost twelve when the State Alchemists were brought in."

"Rather young, don't you think?"

A small smile(smirk, really) graced Ishtar's face. "Trust me, sir; I know of many far younger than I was who suffered worse fates."

The prosecution lawyer sitting at his table fiddled with his tie and collar a little at her response. That was good—he would be far too busy trying to be politically correct and would therefore spend so much time searching for optimum wording that he would lose focus on attacking the defense. Really, Ishtar mused, politicians and lawyers wasted too much time trying to make everyone feel better that they lost sight of their true goals.

"Ms. Amari—"

"It's Mrs. Amari, actually. I'm married."

"Right. Mrs. Amari, could you tell the court what you witnessed in Ishbal, as it pertains to former Colonel Roy Mustang or former Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye?"

Ishtar leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes. "I knew terrible things were going to happen when my father told me to pack only a small knapsack. My mother cried that night—another sign that our lives were about to change for the worst. We left our home under the cover of darkness and spent the following years fleeing east, going from city to city, trying to reach a destination unknown to me at the time. A few weeks shy of my twelfth birthday, I lost my family to the war.

"We had been living in a previously abandoned warehouse that had been turned into a shelter for the homeless and a hospital for the injured. It was horrible—people were everywhere, cramped into what little space was available. There was blood everywhere, the sounds of the desperate and the faithful crying out to Ishbala, begging for Her salvation. It was the lowest point of my life. I had never known such hunger, such sorrow, such desperation.

"The night that everything changed, we were faced with a terrifying new development. State Alchemists had arrived. We had no idea they had made it so far east. People were rushing around, screaming and shouting, trying to evacuate and make their way to safer places. It was not enough. Soon the whole world, it seemed, was engulfed in flames. To this day I do not know how I managed to escape without so much as single severe burn. I do not know where I hid, only that it was dark and tall walls block the heat from the flames.

"When I was next conscious, although it couldn't have been too long, as it was still night and I had not yet been disturbed, I remember feeling an odd sort of calmness. A voice spoke to me in that instant—_'Your parents are with Me now,'_ it said, _'but their bodies are not far from you. Go and give them a proper burial, and I shall make sure no harm comes to you.'_ I did not question it at the time, and I crawled over to a pair of corpses, charred beyond recognition. The only way I was able to determine the bodies as my own father and mother was because of my father's cross pendant and my mother's bracelet with a prayer for peace carved into it. Doing as I had been told, I began the passing-over rites that I had learned in the years before. I anointed the forehead, mouth and hands, so that their thoughts, words, and actions might be pure in Paradise. I never even noticed the soldier until he stood hardly more than a few feet from me, poised to snap his fingers and end my life."

Ishtar sent a pointed look over to the black haired man sitting at the defense table. She continued.

"Despite everything, I felt no fear. Ishbala had spoken to me, promising me Her protection. I had no reason to fear. Apparently, the soldier could not force himself to kill me, and fell to his knees. 'Were they your parents?' he asked me. I told them that they were. Then he helped me make two graves for them, with his alchemy. He told me that he was not as good with earth as he was with fire. I laughed and told him that it was alright—a far better job than what I could have done. It did not seem unusual at that moment, that I could laugh with the man who most surely had created the flames that killed my parents, and I still do not find it unusual. After he helped me lay my parents to rest, he told me to go and hide and not be found by an Amestrian soldier.

"For a long time, I did not know what happened to the soldier in blue who saved my life that night, but now I know. He led a coup, and overthrew the man who ordered that bloody war, losing his sight in the process. He is a husband now, and a father."

Ishtar thought back to trio of children she had met on her way to the trial. The boy looked so much like his father, but had his mother's eyes. The oldest girl was practically her mother's double, and the youngest girl was a female version of her father. Ishtar had been reminded of her own children, and had thought it a pity that they were on the verge of losing both of their parents.

"I see, Mrs. Amari. Now, how certain are you that former Colonel Roy Mustang was the soldier who saved you?"

"Completely, without a doubt."

* * *

Erika groaned as she stretched, cursing herself for sitting at a desk for so long. It had been a month since she had left her home in Central. A long, hard month of enduring never-ending deserts, overly-curious Xingnese citizens, and idiotic Xingnese royalty.

…Okay, so maybe Emperor Ling wasn't ALL that bad, but his idiot son and snob daughter most certainly were! Empress LanFan was the most tolerable of the bunch.

"Erika-san? Are you done yet? Edward-sama wants to see you."

Erika looked over to see a young boy with pitch black hair and misty brown eyes wearing a silk shirt and loose pants typical of children in the palace. Erika herself had taken to the slimmer, sleeveless dresses with a slit up the side all the way to her hip.

"I told you, Weimin, drop the honorifics. Edward is your uncle and I'm your cousin. We're family, not strangers," Erika said as she walked over to the little boy.

At just past three-years-old, Weimin Elric-Chang was such a cute little boy, it almost made Erika want to hug the living daylights out of the kid each time she saw him. And his baby sister, 6-month-old Xiaolian, was also extremely cute. Erika patted him on the head and the two left the study Erika had set up for herself.

The teenager had been rather surprised to have been all but ambushed a few weeks before her departure by a few members of the Yao Clan. As if that alone were not shocking enough, they had told her about the discovery they had made: a young man whom their emperor claimed to know. The description they had given her fit that of her Uncle Alphonse that Erika had all but forced them to take her to Xing right there and then.

Agreeing to give them a few weeks to get everything lined up, Erika set about getting things on her end of the bargain ready as well. As much as it hurt to keep her mother unaware of what was going on, Erika had convinced herself that it was for the best. After all, no need to get her poor mother's hopes up, now was there?

…but imagine Erika's shock when, a few days after her arrival, another man was dragged into the palace—a man who bore a stunning resemblance to the man in the photographs Erika had looked at as a child. And as it turned out, neither her uncle nor father could remember their pasts, and had apparently lost their ability to speak Amestrian, so Erika set herself to the task of teaching them.

Alphonse, as it turned out, had already been working hard on both aspects with the assistance of his wife, Mei Chang. While she couldn't help him recover the vast majority of his memories, she had managed to get him back into a semi-fluent grasp of Amestrian. Edward was also catching on fast with the language, but Erika really couldn't do much in terms of memories. Maybe her mother could….

"Watch where you're going, Erika." A hand shot into Erika's view and stopped her short of running into a teetering stack of books. The blonde looked up to realize she was now in the library.

"Hey, I was thinking! It's not like you've never spaced out before. Last week you walked right into a wall because you were trying to multitask walking and reading!"

"Playing that card again, huh? I honestly don't get it! You can do that just fine and not hit anything, but I do it and it's a disaster."

"That's because I'm a woman, Dad. Women are far better at multitasking than men. Proven fact."

Erika could see the question forming in Edward's eyes. "Mom's an awesome multitasker, too. She can handle multiple rush orders and still have time to help me with my homework. She's awesome."

"Then why did you come to Xing without even telling her?"

The girl fell silent. She hadn't really touched this topic with her father, simply for the fact that he didn't even remember her mother. However, now it was in the open.

"I didn't want to get Mom's hopes up. My whole life, all I heard about was that any day, you'd walk through the door and we'd be a normal family. She hasn't said much about it lately, and I never brought it up. To be honest, Dad, I thought you were dead. Uncle Roy, Uncle Jean, everyone else kept saying you weren't, that you were too stubborn to die, but somehow, I felt like they were just saying that.

"I needed to make sure you were, well, you. I guess I never really thought about what I'd say to Mom if you weren't my Dad or Alphonse wasn't my uncle, but it doesn't matter anymore. I know things at home will be a little tense for a while, but I'm not worried about it."

"You sure about that?"

"Completely, without a doubt."

* * *

~ 3 months later ~

Edward Mustang was certain that there were things one could say in situations like this—things that would stop his baby sister from bawling her eyes out, things that would erase that old look in his other sister's eyes. There had to be words he could say, he just didn't know any of them.

He couldn't tear his eyes from the site before him: his mother and father, both blindfold and their wrists bound, standing ready before the firing squad. His father had slung his arms around his mother, and she had slung her arms around his neck. Together, even in death. The sky was overcast with ominous dark clouds, and the faint rumbling of thunder in the distance signaled the coming of a storm.

"Why is Daddy blindfolded, Big Brother?" Nikki asked as she dragged the sleeve of her jacket across her eyes, trying to remove the tears. "Daddy can't see anyway, so why does he need a blindfold?"

"Oh, Nikki," Blaire whispered, her voice almost too soft to be heard.

The older sister hugged the younger close, trying to shield the smaller girl from the horrible sight they were about to witness. Nikki struggled a little, trying to turn around to see what would happen to her parents. Edward couldn't figure out what was crueler: keep Nikki from seeing the final moments of her parents' lives, or to let her watch their deaths.

Ishtar and her husband stood directly behind the three siblings. Every bit of parental instinct the couple had was screaming for them to hold the children as their world crashed down around them, but they stayed back. There would be time for all of that later. Other adults from the children's lives are present, scattered throughout the crowd.

Edward can see Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong standing with Chris three rows down. Ms. Rockbell is ten seats away from them, face buried in her handkerchief. She had known too much sadness in the past few months. Mr. and Mrs. Havoc were about three sections to the left, and Edward didn't even dare to look over to see how they were reacting. The wails coming from that direction told him all he needed to know. Mrs. Hughes and Elysia were with Ms. Rockbell, Mrs. Hughes holding the other woman in a comforting embrace despite the tears rolling down her face as well. Countless others were in countless other places around the parade grounds. It sickened the young boy that such a place would be the site of his parents' murder.

Fuehrer Olivia Armstrong read off whatever the hell was required to be said. There were supposed to be words one could say in this situation.

All Edward could manage was a half-strangled "Don't look" as the firing squad opened fire.

* * *

**...I swear to you that was NOT the original ending. The original ending was supposed to be the beginning of the trial, but this chapter felt that would too slow. So, we have a massive blow up. Little snippet for the next chapter: There will be a battle. That's all I'm going to say. **

**Ishtar and Malik Amari are going to become about as important to the Mustang siblings as Izumi and Sig Curtis were to the Elrics. So we will be dealing with them quite a bit. **

**Yes, I had to slip in the AlMei bit. I've got a drawing of Weimin and Xiaolian that I'm going to get put up as soon as the stupid scanner works. When I get them up, I'll give you guys the link. Weimin's name means "people's hero" , and Xiaolian's name means "little compassionate one". **

**Another thing, "Fuehrer" is the correct spelling when one does not have the ability to use an umlaut. (The two dots above the u in Fuehrer) The added e helps convey the implied usage of the umlaut. So, simply leaving out the e in Fuhrer (which is how most people who do not understand the German language spell it) is, in my view as a German student, just plain lazy. However, I understand that not everyone understands this about the German language. Just thought I'd cut that one off at the pass in case anyone wants to get on my case about it.  
**

**So, until next time, please read and review!**

**-SakuraLetters  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey, everyone! SakuraLetters at you live with the fifth chapter of "Utopian Requiem". Something about this chapter will haunt me until the day I die. I just do not know what it is exactly.  
**

**Anywho, I hope the writing is not sucky. I've been run ragged for the past few months and am about ready to strangle my 4-H leader. However, enjoy to chapter anyway!**

**Disclaimer: I, SakuraLetters, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa does, and although I am half Japanese, I am not a successful mangaka. I do, however, own the wide array of original characters featured in this story.**

* * *

The gunshots stopped, but the echoes haunted the grounds in the immediate aftermath. Blaire was shaking, looking almost ready to collapse. Edward felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn't have to look to know it was Ishtar.

"Edward, we need to leave now."

He knew she was right. Ishtar had somehow gotten her hands on a court order to put the siblings into the foster care system, which would almost guarantee that they would be separated. In order to prevent that, Edward had gone behind everyone's backs to make arrangements to disappear. It ripped him apart inside, to leave everyone wondering what happened to him and his sisters. He had seen the reactions to Erika's disappearance.

A flash of gold caught Edward's eye. He looked up and saw a young woman dressed entirely in black walking away, her brilliant blonde hair snapping behind her. He knew that back. He had spent most of his life chasing that back through the crowded streets of Central.

"Erika…."

* * *

It was a disheartening thing to witness, Erika mused as she walked down the stairs. She hadn't even gotten to say goodbye….

"Erika?"

The young woman tore herself from her thoughts to see her father and uncle and aunt, all of whom were looking at her with pure concern.

"They're dead. Executed for war crimes in Ishbal." She still couldn't believe it. The man and woman she had grown up calling her uncle and aunt were gone. They were really, truly gone and nothing could ever bring them back.

"Can't believe that Colonel Bastard's really gone," Edward muttered, half staring at the floor.

"Miss Hawkeye's gone too," Alphonse said, not quite wanting to accept it. "What will happen to the kids," he asked, ripping himself out of his grief.

"Don't know. I'd say they'll be split up and put into different foster homes, but Ed would never allow that," Erika said, falling into deep thought.

"It is you!"

Erika looked up to see the root of her thoughts: a black-haired boy with flaming amber eyes, looking a might bit pissed. She blinked, recognizing the prime opportunity for a fight to break out. He really wouldn't rush her while she was in a skirt, now would he?

His next movement forced her to throw that thought out the proverbial window.

* * *

The only lights were dim fluorescents and the glow of certain buttons throughout the lab. Two bodies were carried in, wrapped in black body tarps, blood trailing behind them. Two men in white coats looked up at the people who had just entered.

"Are they dead?" One white-coat asked, a stern expression on his face.

"Quite dead, sir. The mortician was quite clear on that."

"Good. We shall begin then," the other white-coat replied, a twisted grin appearing below his glasses.

* * *

Erika dodged quickly, narrowly missing a rather powerful punch. She moved away from her irate friend, confused irritation starting to take hold.

"Ed, what the hell? Is this how you greet your friends all of a sudden?"

"My friends? Would a friend run off in the middle of the night, no note, and let everyone assume she had been kidnapped or killed?" Ed growled as he continued to throw kicks and punches at Erika. "Do you have any idea the hell you've put your mom through?"

That seemed to strike Erika hard, as she stopped suddenly and looked at her friend, a sorrowful expression in her eyes. Ed took the opportunity to land a rather hard punch on her shoulder. Then he stopped and tried to calm himself down.

"I deserved that, Ed. I admit it. I wanted to tell you guys what was going on, but I didn't want to get Mom's hopes up. Yes, I know what I did was idiotic at best and I probably have a lot worse coming from the others, but I don't regret it."

"What the hell do you mean, you don't regret it?"

"Look behind you, Ed."

A confused expression broke through the anger as Ed straightened and looked behind him. It took him a moment to register what exactly it was he saw. He took a step back, struck by amazed disbelief.

"Erika, are they…?"

"Yes. Ed, I'd like you to meet my father and uncle, Edward and Alphonse Elric, and my aunt, Mei Chang Elric. This is why I left like that, Ed. I would have been home sooner, but there were a few…minor complications."

Erika walked up to her friend and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know it's not my place anymore, but," she wrapped him in a hug, "I'm sorry. About what happened. How are you three holding up?"

Ed froze for a moment and then returned the hug, all of his anger flushed away. "Nikki's been crying non-stop, and Blaire isn't exactly stoic either. We're going into hiding for awhile."

Erika smiled into his shoulder. "I knew you would. Who are you staying with?"

"Someone who isn't close enough to the family to be a first guess, but who are still people the three of us know we can trust. As soon as things die down a little, the three of us are planning on going somewhere else."

She nodded, and broke the hug. She wiped a small tear from her eyes, and took a deep breath.

"How mad is everyone else going to be if I show up now?"

* * *

The white-coat tapped a vial of red liquid. The needle glinted maliciously in the dim light. He entered the lab, where the two bodies were now strapped to the tables. He looked over their wounds.

"The firing squad wasn't exactly clean, now where they?"

"What does it matter? Once the Stone takes over the wounds will heal. Now, let's begin."

The white-coat grinned and injected the liquid into the man's body.

* * *

"Erika Lynn! Where the hell have you been? You had me worried sick!"

"Mom…air! I need…air!" Erika forced out as her mother held her in a hug strong enough to rival Mr. Armstrong's. Winry released Erika from the hug, but kept a firm grip on her daughter's shoulders.

"Well, young lady? Explain."

"I'm sorry, Mom. I know I should have told you about this, but I didn't want you to get your hopes up."

"What are you talking about?"

Erika sighed and squirmed out of her mother's hold. "Mom, there are a few people I want you to meet." She moved to the door and made a "come in" motion. Three people then entered the room, causing those in the room who didn't already know to gasp. Winry recovered first.

"Ed? Is that really you? And Al?"

"Yeah, Win. It's really me."

"Same here, Winry. We're back for good this time," Al said, barely having time to finish when Winry knocked him and Ed to the ground in a hug.

Erika watched with an amused sense of amazement. She had never actually seen her mother interact with her father and uncle (for obvious reasons), so this was a whole new experience for her. She saw tears fall from her mother's eyes, and for a brief moment, cold panic ran through her. However, as she paid attention, she realized that her mother was crying out of happiness. Erika smiled.

"We need to get going," Blaire murmured as she stood up. "Nice to see you again, Erika."

"You too, Blaire," Erika replied, pulling the younger girl into a hug. "I hope everything works out for you three."

"Yeah, me too," Blaire whispered, pulling away and wiping away stray tears.

Erika watched the siblings exit the room, an uneasiness settling in her gut. She had the horrible feeling that she would never see them again. Part of her screamed to go after them, to offer them protection, shelter, anything, but she stayed firm. They knew what they were doing.

And so she let the Mustang siblings walk out of her life.

* * *

The scientists hummed in excitement as the reaction finished in both "patients". A moment of perfect stillness hung in the laboratory. Then, the bodies began to move. The eyes opened—soulless onyx and empty topaz. Slowly, the bodies sat up, disinterested looks of pure boredom on their faces.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, say hello to our newest successes. The new Lust and Wrath."

* * *

**Yeah...who can guess who the new Lust and Wrath are? First three people to guess right get a free cookie. I hope to have Chapter 6 up before school starts on Sept. 2, but I can't make any promises. This is the last moment of peace I'll have for a while. **

**Oh, and to any readers of "In Hindsight", sorry, but I've hit some pretty impressive writer's block on that. I know where I want the story to go, I'm just failing at how to get there. **

**Thanks for reading, and please review!**

**-SakuraLetters  
**


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